300 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



o 



SKETCH OF DK. THOMAS YOUIs^G. 



N a slab in Westminster Abbey, surmounted by a profile medal- 

 lion, the work of Chantrey, there is the following inscription : 



SACKED TO THE MEMOEY OF 



TPIOMAS YOUNG, M. D., 



FELLOW AXD FOREIGN SECRETARY OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, 



MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE; 



A MAN ALIKE EMINENT 



IN ALMOST EVERY DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN LEARNING. 



PATIENT OF UNINTERMITTED LABOR, 



ENDOWED WITH THE FACULTY OF INTUITIVE PERCEPTION, 



WHO, BRINGING AN EQUAL MASTERY 



TO THE MOST ABSTRUSE INVESTIGATIONS 



OF LETTERS AND OF SCIENCE, 



FIRST ESTABLISHED THE UNDULATORY THEORY OF LIGHT, 



AND FIRST PENETRATED THE OBSCURITY 



WHICH HAD VEILED FOE AGES 



THE HIEROGLYPHICS OF EGYPT. 



The subject of this eulogy was one of the most remarkable men iu 

 the annals of British science and literature — according to Prof. Tyn- 

 dall, the greatest man of science that had appeared since Newton ; and, 

 as his biography has never been republished in this country, a brief 

 sketch of his life will be fresh and instructive to many. 



Thomas Youxg was born in IV 73, and died in 1829. He was the 

 eldest son of ten children. His parents were both members of the So- 

 ciety of Friends, and strict observers of the principles of their sect, 

 in which their children were carefully educated. Dr. Dalton, the 

 eminent English chemist, was also of Quaker parentage and education ; 

 but, while he continued through life to retain his membership of the 

 denomination and to conform to its principles. Dr. Young held the 

 tenets and conformed to the observances of the Society only during 

 his youth. He was a very precocious child. At two years of age he 

 could read with fluency, and had read the Bible twice through before 

 he was four years old. At six years of age he could repeat Gold- 

 smith's " Deserted Village," and had previously begun his Latin 

 grammar. At seven years of age he was sent to a miserable board- 

 ing-school, but the next year at the house of a friend he came across 

 a "Dictionary of Arts and Sciences," which he perused with intense 

 interest, and also got instruction in the use of some mathematical and 

 philosophical instruments. When nine years old he was sent to an- 

 other school, where he remained four years, and made great proficiency 

 in classics, mathematics, and natural philosophy. He also learned the 

 principles of drawing, the art of book-binding, the construction of mi- 



